


the one where they don't(?) remember

by Apalapucian



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Muggle, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, F/M, Gen, Lowercase, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-08 00:25:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18884377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apalapucian/pseuds/Apalapucian
Summary: they’re bound to meet. all of them, at some point. he's not surprised, although he did hope it wouldn’t happen.(i am here. why don't you remember?)





	the one where they don't(?) remember

the sound of the door chimes is drowned by the collective chatter in the coffee shop, but sirius catches it.

they’re bound to meet. all of them, at some point. sirius isn’t surprised, although he did hope it wouldn’t happen. but here they are. he’s stopped questioning it; there’ve been too many memories to count. memories that he shouldn’t even have to begin with, impossible for him to have, but it is what it is. dwelling on the whys and hows just drove him crazy. he knows. he’s done it.

he doesn’t know when it started happening, or if it’s always happened, but it all always comes to him the first time he meets one of them.

it was remus this time. he and regulus were on the way home from a friend’s house—well, regulus’s friend—well,  _not_ a friend, because they were going home in the first place because sirius had to come get him after a vague ‘i want to go home please come pick me up’ text message. they stopped by a convenience store to buy ice cream because regulus seemed shaken about something that he didn’t want to talk about yet. movie night and ice cream would calm him down. it always did. 

reg stayed in the car. the shop’s shelves were a head shorter than sirius, so he didn’t have to go all the way around to ask the bloke who manned the counter about the marshmallows that were missing a price tag. he just looked up, raised a hand to get his attention, and—

—and it was  _remus_ behind the fucking counter. it hit sirius like a bludger-whack in the head.

funny. he hadn’t even known what bludgers were literally two seconds before that.

the hell with the price tag.

“we don’t have change,” were the first words remus said to him. his eyes were on the cash register. “so if you have a smaller bill—”

“ah, no, just—just keep the change.”

remus looked up, catching the stutter. “yeah?”

the lump in sirius’s throat was too big to speak, so he just nodded. his heart raced, but his brain did even faster. it didn’t take long. it always doesn’t take long. just a second, two, and everything is back.  _everything._ the beginning is the most vivid.

red and gold ties. flying. a shattered house. moonlit scars.

but regulus was waiting for him in the car, and remus didn’t seem to remember, and—

—and he  _shouldn’t_. it always ends the same way. if remus didn’t remember—if he doesn’t remember  _here,_ then maybe that’s good. 

no, it  _is_ good.

but also, god, he misses him. he misses them.

and they’re  _right here._ now. all of them. it’s  _happening_.

_again._

lily was the first one. she was already here when he arrived. he entered and she was at that communal table for six, with a group of people who were obviously not her party—she was immersed in a thick textbook propped on the bulk of her backpack, while the others were old men in suits discussing, quite heatedly, the executive village that was going to be built on a current residential area. lily kept throwing them not-so-furtive disapproving looks for all the noise—or maybe for the subject of the discussion—but no one save for sirius seemed to notice. the coffee shop was  _packed_. still is. there was just one seat left, in fact, when he got here, a stool at the counter, and sirius swiftly took that and watched lily from it. she was on her second coffee by then—there were two cups with her name beside the book. the table looks so much like the ones in the great hall.

she is exactly as sirius remembers, just—her hair is shorter. messier. god, he hopes he’s better at being inconspicuous than she is.

then remus arrived. he went straight to the till to talk to a barista.

“you’re early,” they told him.

“i was bored at home,” remus said, leaning on the sink, not putting on an apron yet. his shift hasn’t started. he did a sweep of the coffee shop, face twitching to the smallest frown at the crowd. then, inevitably, his gaze landed on sirius.

it wasn’t as devastating as the first time, at the shop, but it’s—it still stung. 

remus stopped, too, raised a hand in greeting, put on a rather confused smile.

for a moment sirius thought,  _oh god, he remembers_ , but then,  _yes, he does_ — _the_ shop _. he remembers the shop. stupid._

“keep-the-change guy,” remus said, sure enough, when he passed by him on the way to the pantry.

“yeah, hello,” said sirius, as nonchalantly as he could. “you work here now then?”

remus shrugged. “i work everywhere.”

he should’ve left by then, really. remus and lily at the same place could only mean trouble for him. 

but then the old men in suits left, the communal table was emptied, and james walked in.

sirius has been dreading and anticipating this. 

the door chimes are still echoing in his head even after they’ve stilled, grating and ugly, like they’re mocking.

it hurts like all hell. all over. his skin is tingling and everything is pounding and—

he wants to cry.

he wants to throw up.

he has to  _leave,_ now, them being all here can only mean the universe is playing its fucked up game again, but he—he has to  _know_ —

he hops off the stool. two girls who have apparently been eyeing the communal table also rushed to it the moment the old men left, taking the two seats beside lily. sirius sits across her, a seat between him and james.

james is right there.

just right there. fuck.

“sorry, excuse me, are you with anyone?” sirius asks lily, but both she and james look up. he doesn’t need the bloody seat. he doesn’t need much else right now. he just needs to talk to them. he just needs  _them_ to talk to  _him_. 

lily stares at him for a beat, then shakes her head. she goes back to her book. picks up a highlighter, drags it across a line. switches it with a pen, scribbles something.

james watches the short exchange, watches even when it’s over, as if waiting for something. 

“er, what about you?” sirius asks him, his heart in his throat. his left hand grips the empty seat between them like his life depended on it, and his right index finger is spinning the keychain on his motorcycle keys like some crazy shithead. it’s just—they’re shaking so bad, okay? and he doesn’t want them to see.

“nah, you can take it,” says james, looking at him funny. his gaze shifts to lily, watches her scribble furiously on a post-it that she then slaps on a page. he frowns. then he looks back at sirius. “sorry, do i know you?”

sirius’s head feels like it’s made of gold. he shakes it. “doubt it. i’m not from around here.”

“oh.” he juts out his lower lip in thought, the habit so painstakingly familiar that sirius wants to scream. “right… well, are you going to get something? i could watch the seats for you.” he puts down his blood-red backpack on the seat between them, and it’s the exact same color as his quidditch gear, and sirius—

“alright?” james asks, because sirius has stood up very abruptly, like he’s been burned. even lily looks up (but she’s looking at james).

“i—yeah,” sirius says. “yeah, no, on second thought, i…” he lets that hang. he gets out of there. he can’t do it.

godric’s hollow can’t happen again.

he bumps into remus on his way out. he mutters a ‘sorry’, but he’s too out of it to say or do much else.

☽

 remus doesn’t see, but even over the coffee shop din, he hears the motorcycle rev out of the parking lot. 

he goes back to the sink and puts the iced americano down. glares at it.

 _padfoot_ is already scribbled on the side, but it’s  _stupid,_ and  _selfish,_ and—and this is a sign that remus should just let them be. he can live with the memories. he can live with seeing them around the city and having to act like strangers.

he gave in to the temptation today, and this is what he got. 

he pours sirius’s favorite drink down the drain.

no matter. he’s stopping. it’s better this way.

☽

five post-its are already covering the supposed content of her final, and yet she adds another, almost covering the entire page. she probably won’t stop until  _he_  leaves. hell, even his name hurts.

_alright?_

no, she’s not fucking alright. she’s never been more not-alright than right now.

sirius is already gone, and lily had to rub her eyes under the pretense of exhaustion when she heard that stupid motorcycle of his. maybe  _she_ should leave. but she can’t. she  _can’t._ her soul is ripping itself apart somewhere inside her, but she can’t leave. he’s  _so close._ she’s never felt so tattered and so whole at the same time.

this is what dying feels like. 

she writes,  _you’re here you’re here you’re here you’re here_

_i miss you_

_i miss you so fucking much so much i miss you_

_james sirius remus_

_james james james_

_potter_

_i miss you_

_i am here_

_why don’t you remember?_

☽

james’s mum finds him absolutely smashed on the doorstep later at 2 AM, and she calls his dad home because he—he’s never come home drunk, let alone  _this_ drunk. he’s never ever come home  _like this_.

he didn’t even ring the bell; she just happened to fix a gap in the curtains at the right moment, and then there he is. sobbing on the doormat, a complete mess, blubbering about—she doesn’t get much, he’s slurring so bad—but she catches, she thinks:

_—they’re here—_

_—remember—_

_—but i can’t._

he says that last one over and over.

_i can’t i can’t i can’t._

he’s still muttering it even when he’s fallen asleep— _i can’t i love you i can’t i can’t._

she thinks he also says  _lily_  at some point.

but maybe she heard wrong.

**Author's Note:**

> i fixed my [tumblr theme](https://apalapucian.tumblr.com/) and updated my masterlist and realized i havent uploaded this outside of tumblr, so here! the original title of this was 'run', because this was inspired by a theory a came up with for the whole bangtan universe thing. hyyh up to the ly reels. i changed it to match the "the one" thing i've got going on.
> 
> any jily-armys around? :(


End file.
